April 29, 2038: Oxygen
by storiewriter
Summary: Down in the basement of the Stanley Pines Memorial Library on April 29, Willow's asthma attack draws Dipper, still high on power and looking for an outlet, to the basement. Willow and Dipper make a deal. It doesn't end well.


**A/N:** Set directly after/during the events of _April 29, 2038_.

Focuses on characters belonging to _seiya234_ on both tumblr and ao3. Mabel Pines, Dipper Pines, and Grunkle Stan belong to Alex Hirsch, as does Gravity Falls.

* * *

 _April 29, 2038—2:36 PM_

They could still feel the shaking, little tremors that shook dust from the ceiling and had Willow pressing her face into Grunkle Stan's shoulder, heavy and exhausted from her asthma attack. She knew that the inhaler didn't fix things forever, but she could already feel her lungs tightening up again and the feeling of breathlessness scared her beyond anything.

 _Uncle Dipper_ , she thought, frantic, _Uncle Dipper Uncle Dipper Uncle Dipper_!

"Henry says they're still getting aftershocks at the library," Mom said in a whisper. "They've quieted down some from earlier, but they're still pretty strong. He says he'll come as soon as he's able."

"Dad's coming?" Hank murmured. He sounded next to Mom.

Grunkle Stan grunted, the sound reverberating from his chest into Willow's, and stroked her hair. His chest rose, slow and even and calm, then fell, slow and even and calm. Try as she might, she couldn't copy it. "As long as he doesn't do anything stupid to get here, that's fine."

Their voices helped a little, but she inhaled next to nothing and coughed the rest out. She sucked in another fruitless breath, and pulled away from Grunkle Stan's shoulder, needing air air air she wasn't getting any air _UNCLE DIPPER HELP AIR._

There was suddenly a _blipping_ noise and the scent of fresh pine, and Grunkle Stan jolted beneath her. "Hey kid, where the hell have you been?"

"Uncle Dipper!" Acacia yelled, Hank echoing her just a moment later.

Mom gasped and stood. "Did you bite your tongue? Are you hurt?"

"Haha, good questions everybody! Just raising a bit of hell, snacking on the flesh of inconsequential demon challengers. Did you know that demon blood tastes like caramel and high fructose corn syrup and Smile Dip all in one? You'd like it, Mizar!" Uncle Dipper's voice was higher and more warbly and echo-y than usual. Grunkle Stan got a bit stiff in the arms, and his shoulders straightened.

Willow sucked in as much air as she could but it wasn't working, it wasn't working and she tugged on that string between her and Uncle Dipper.

"Dipdop?" Her Mom asked, her hand on Willow's arm.

"Yeah, that's right! Sorry, Little Fighter, forgot you called me here. Hey, I have a lot of energy to burn and _so_ little time to do it—you wanna take some off my hands in exchange for me eating that little attack?"

Finally, Willow, mid-fit, turned her head to look at Uncle Dipper. His smile was wider and sharper than usual, and there was a golden paint dripping off his teeth and down the corner of his mouth, running down the length of his chin and staining the collar of his suit. Sparks were flying off his eyes, his hair was ruffled and smoking a little, and she was just about to look closer at his gold-painted sleeves and swirling, agitated colors when she had another fit. In desperation, she flung out an arm, even as Mom said, "Willow, wait!"

"We have a deal!" Uncle Dipper crowed, warbles and echoes magnifying and enveloping the space. Willow caught sight of blue fire streaming from his gold-crusted hand when he took her hand in and then she stopped coughing.

There was a moment of peace where Uncle Dipper materialized his top hat, bowed with a gentlemanly flair, and then blipped out. Willow sat up straight, stared at what he was, and realized that the golden paint was really blood. She looked around, horror on her face, and then noticed everybody staring at her.

"Willow," Mom said, colors wonky and tinged with just a hint of blellow, Hank on her left and Acacia on her right, "honey, are you all right?"

Willow thought about that. She wasn't coughing, she didn't feel like there were a ton of boulders sitting on her chest, and really, she felt fuller of energy than she had all day.

"Yeah," she said, and her voice was rising up and out of her chest. She lifted her hands at her sides, and a grin split her face in two. "Yeah, it's pretty great! Haha, I'm doing really good!"

"Willow, you're acting really weird," Hank said, frowning. "Not in a good way either."

She narrowed her eyes. "That was mean," she said, lilting and a bit warbly. Like Uncle Dipper, that was cool. And hilarious! Really hilarious. So that comment was rude and uncalled for and she wouldn't have anybody say that. "I don't like that."

"Well, it's the truth! Don't take it so bad." Acacia stepped forward, colors flaring with irritation. Willow felt herself flare up in turn, and her focus zoomed in on her challenger's aura, bright and brash and threatening.

" _Don't say that to me,_ " she said, and dropped her hands to her sides, flames flickering between her fingers. Something swelled in her chest but it didn't hurt her to breathe, just made her powerful and angry and righteous and she was right, she was right and if she burned this insignificant speck in front of her it would be justice. " _You might regret it._ "

An older one stepped in front of her challenger, taller and more threatening in spite of the scared and nervous colors bouncing off of her. "Willow," she said, "I need you to calm down, please. You're scaring me."

" _Really?_ " Willow tilted her head, felt the pressure burning and building in her chest, and snapped out another flare of fire. The two smaller ones yelped and jumped back, and the floor was scorched and that felt so great so great her fingers smarted but the pain was the kind that felt bad but good at the same time so she did it again, this time harder, and it stung and smarted so well that she laughed out loud and forgot all about the little challenger hiding behind an older mass of color.

"Willow, sweetie, you're scaring us all. C'mon, kid, you can do it."

She just howled with laughter because the old-old mess of greys and blellow and purple-greens was right, she could do anything because the pain was good and there was a power filling up her chest and lungs instead of crushing them and she could take on the entire world and not feel a thing when she did. And so she cackled and sparked the flames between her fingers brighter and brighter, letting them crawl up her arms and down onto the floor, turning it a blue-cracked black. She screamed and crowed, taking in deep gulps of air and forcing them out, feeling so bright and powerful and great because she wasn't drowning out of water and she could do whatever she wanted with the air around her and it was _amazing_.

Then the older mass of color, pinks and reds pulsing with bright white agitation and blellow fear, pulled Willow into it and Willow pushed back, growled and screamed with anger because this was restricting and she didn't want to be restricted, she wanted to be free free free and a _let me go_ blaze of bright blue and white flame burst out of her and onto the older mass of pinks and reds. But the mass held on, its front burning and its hair curling from the heat, and it whispered "I've got you little girl, I've got you darling, I've got you, so just let all of that angsty Dipdop power out and we'll be good, we'll be good."

Willow pushed away with her arms (too small too thin too _weak_ ) and with her flames (burning but not hot enough not bright enough to turn this mass of color to ash, just set it on smoke) and shrieked in despair. She coated herself in fire, trying to get away get away get away but the bright pulse of power in her chest was dimming, was receding, and she frantically pushed more flame out to feed it.

There was a pressure on her shoulders, and an older, gravelly voice said, "Sweetie, calm down, you're hurting your mother. Can't you see how she's scared? Look at her colors, feel her colors, and—damn that sounds like some Gideon bullshit every time I say it."

"Grunkle Stan!"

"Well, it does!"

Willow snarled and twisted just enough to grab hold of the older voice's hand with her teeth and bite down. He grunted and red trickled over her teeth into her mouth, thick and salty and warm and _good_.

"G-Grunkle!"

"Willow!"

Making a noise of pleased surprise, she clamped her jaw down harder and pulled away a little, the blood pooled around her upper lip and slid under her incisors and over her tongue. The ball of power was receding, but she just let the flames die down and continued to drink in the man's blood.

"Grunkle Stan, are you okay?"

The hand jerked a little as the man laughed. "It's fine, she's got all her shots and shi—stuff. It's just a flesh wound, nothing serious! Damn she's got a strong jaw."

There was a comforting pressure on her head, a hand smoothing down her hair, ignoring the tangles. She was pulled into somebody's lap, and she whined but the old man's hand and the old man's blood went with her. Pacified, she let herself be maneuvered. With simmering blue-lit hands, she clutched charcoal-y strands of woven yarn and lowered her eyelids.

"That's it, shh, shh, it's okay Willow."

"Is Willow…is she okay? What happened?" That was…that was the not-challenger-but-special-girl, the, the—she couldn't remember. But that was her, bright blues and greens and hands that created but also destroyed.

"Your dweeby Uncle Dipper's running on power overload and thought he'd give her some in exchange for her asthma attack, and I guess it didn't sit too well in her system."

Uncle Dipper sounded familiar. She had a flash of warmth and devoured nightmares, of golden spit weighing down her hair and tutoring sessions. Uncle Dipper was good.

"Uh, Willow sweetie? Glad you like my hand and all, but it's starting to hurt and I think I'd like it back so that I can check on the equipment, see that nothing's damaged. You know, manly G-Grunkle stuff. If, uh, that's okay with you."

Willow hummed. On one hand, it did taste good. On the other, it was her G-Grunkle Stan, and if this was hurting him then maybe she should stop. A moment of deliberation later, she fought past the temptation to keep her teeth embedded in his hand and opened her mouth. She looked up at his grey, purple-green aura and narrowed her eyes at the unsettled fuschia color. Why was he unsettled? He got like this once when Uncle Dipper made the walls bleed, but no walls were bleeding right now.

"Thanks, kid," G-Grunkle Stan said, and ruffled her hair with the hand not coated in blood and drool.

"Thank you, Willow," her Mom echoed and Willow blinked. Why was she thanking her using the voice Mom reserved for Uncle Dipper when he was on dipnip? "Now Willow, can you look at me for a moment? Just look at me in the eyes, honey."

She frowned and smacked her lips. On second thought, the blood, while warm and salty and nice, had a bitter iron tang to it that she didn't really like. Screwing up her face a bit, Willow turned to look her Mom in the eyes.

And stiffened. "Mom, why is your face black?" she asked, and her throat felt gravelly and harsh. She kept talking. "And why are your eyebrows gone? And why is your hair smoking?"

"Just a bit of an accident Willow, it's fine."

But Willow remembered that the taste in her mouth was blood, it was G-Grunkle Stan's _blood_ , and she whipped her head around to look for him. His suit was singed a little, and he was in the corner wrapping his hand in a scrap of his shirt. Her mouth opening in horror, she took in the room—the machines blinking and smoldering, the floor still crackling with blue-hot heat, and Acacia and Hank, scared and worried in the corner, auras painful to look at especially because she had the sinking feeling that she did this.

"Mom?" she asked, and turned to face her mother. "Mom?"

"It's fine, silly!" Her mother grinned, but Willow looked down at the fraying, crumbling remains of her mother's favorite shooting-star sweater, saw how the strands twisted and stiffened into charcoal, their bright color leeching into black. She followed the trailing bits of synthetic wool down to Mom's arms, which were covered in crackly splotches of pale pink and red, skin shining white where the light hit it. There were little peeling bits in places, and they shone an awful white in the pale, blinking lights of the machines.

Another tremor shook the ceiling, sending dust down, but Willow pushed herself off her Mom's lap, wide eyed, and stared at her hands. They were covered in charcoal and blood and the skin was a little dry, a little rough.

"No," she whimpered, touched her lips with her fingers and pulled it away. She stared at the blood on them, knew it wasn't her own. "No, no, no."

Willow sunk to the floor and stared at her hands, her bloody, family-hurting hands smeared with the residue of her insanity. "No, no, no, no, no."

"Willow, dear, it's okay, it's really okay, it's not your fault." Her Mom touched her lightly on the back, and Willow flinched.

"No, no, no, no, no." Willow sucked a breath in, felt the pressure start to build in her chest again. "No, no, no, no."

"Hey. Hey. Willow, sweetie, look at me." She felt her Mom move around to her head, and moments later there were two hands cupping her cheeks. "Willow, sweetie, I know this is traumatizing and I know you're seriously freaked out, but you gotta calm down."

Willow pulled in a breath, already thinner than the last, and coughed it out. Her head was spinning, aching, and all she could think was _I hurt them I hurt them I hurt them_.

"It's my fault," she choked out. "I hurt you. It's my fault."

"Oh, Willow. No. It's not your fault, you couldn't help it. You're fine, you've done well, now you just need to calm down." Her Mom let out a long, slow breath of air, and one hand withdrew from her cheek to gently tug one of Willow's curled hands forward and onto Mom's own chest. Willow, in the back of her panicked mind, felt Mom's heartbeat, fast but steady. Then she felt her Mom's chest rise, slow and steady, then fall just as calmly.

"Just like me, Wills!" Mom said, and Willow looked up from the curtain of her hair to see Mom's auras, bright reds and pinks and filled with shades of love and hints of worry and an entire spectrum of determination.

There was suddenly a hand on her back, then another, and she felt more than saw Hank and Acacia, who nestled close to her. She could feel them up against her sides, breathing in such synch that they had to be making eye contact and counting up and down the way they did when Willow was overwhelmed with people at school.

"You can do it, sweetie," G-Grunkle Stan said, footsteps coming closer and closer. "Yeah, I'll need to see if Soos can take some time to come up, he's a fu—uuuuudging bit better with this machinery stuff than I am. But you're fine, sweetie."

The ceiling did not shake. Family surrounding her, Willow reached her other hand forward, placed it flat on Mom's chest, and then began to breathe.


End file.
